1979

Ojai 1979

Ojai 2nd Public Dialogue 12th April 1979

Krishnamurti: What shall we have a dialogue about?

Questioner: Psychological pain which goes into physical pain.

K: Psychological pain which goes into physical pain, psychosomatic pain. Q: It seems to me that there must be a contradiction between choice and responsibility, as I don't understand how a person who is conditioned has choice. Or how is there responsibility, and how can a person be good or evil?

K: Isn't there a contradiction between choice and responsibility.

Q: Lack of choice.

K: Lack of choice and responsibility.

Q: Can we have a dialogue about ageing.

K: About getting old. These words, how we avoid that word. `Ageing', why not say we are getting old.

Q: Let's talk about the images.

K: Image-making. Is it possible to understand the making of images and putting an end to them - is that it?

Q: Can we talk about how it comes to happen that thought went into the wrong place?

K: How does it happen that thought moves over, or enters, or takes over in the psychological field.

Q: How did it begin?

K: The origin of this.

Q: What is meditation and why it is important, what it is?

K: What is meditation. Now which of these would you like to have a dialogue about?

Q: Meditation.

Q: Meditation.

K: Do you want to talk about meditation?

Audience: Yes.

K: Do you really? Or is it just a fanciful introduction to talk about something quite irrelevant, apart from our life? If you really want to talk about meditation let's do it, but we must be very, very serious to go into that question. So which would you like? Do you want to talk about it?

Q: Yes.

Q: No.

K: No!

Q: Krishnamurti, last Tuesday we talked about conditioning and one of the conditionings we have to deal with is the conditioning of authority, and when somebody like me thinks about speaking up here he really gets into an authority problem, such as the authority I give you, out of respect, the authority I give the group, and my own authority, which I am not so sure about. Everybody has to deal with that that sits here.

K: Do you want to speak about authority? The authority of the man sitting on the platform, the authority of the public, the authority of the specialists, the authority of one's own experience which becomes inward authority. Do you want to talk about that?

Q: Yes

Q: No.

Q: Could we talk about meditation at a later meeting. That may be more appropriate.

K: All right.

Q: Let's talk about our ability to experience that about which you speak? Or our inability to live it?

K: Would you talk, or could we have a dialogue about that which you are talking about! What a strange crowd we are!

Q: Could we talk about what it is that we really want, what is our over-riding interest?

K: Could we discuss that, what is our search, what it is we are seeking and what is the inner urge to find something - could we talk about that? Do you want to talk about it?

Audience: Yes.

K: All right, sir. You know, I do not know if you have not noticed, specially in California which spreads to the East and also further East, that most Americans are seeking something, are experimenting with various religious ideas, psychological pursuits, group therapy, you know, this whole phenomenon of seeking, wanting something. Is that what you want to discuss?

Audience: Yes.

K: You are sure?

Q: Yes.

K: All right, sir.

Q: Could we talk about respectability?

K: Talk about respectability. All right, sir, we will introduce that word, what is the content of that word, in going into this question of what it is that you are all wanting, that we are all seeking, why you all come here and listen to this man. What for? I think this is really a very good question, if we could have a serious dialogue about it.

Q: To distract us from ourselves, that's why we come here.

K: You come here to escape from yourselves, to avoid our own daily complexities - is that what we are wanting?

Q: I would like to find out about attention, desire and will?

K: We will do that, sir, on Saturday, we will go into the whole question of desire, the implication of desire, the arising of desire and the interference of thought with its image which is pursued through will. So we will discuss that, if you don't mind, on Saturday, the day after tomorrow morning. But let's go into this question: what is it we are all wanting? More money, if you have enough money? Obviously one must have more money if you haven't got it, that gives us food, clothes and shelter. Apart from that, and if it is possible that all human beings right throughout the world have enough food, clothes and shelter, that would be a marvellous world because there is a great deal of poverty, of which you hardly know in this country, where there is degradation, destruction, of absolute hopelessness, not having a job, food, clothes and all that. We can go into that. But apart from that, in an affluent society where most of us have some kind of assurance of food, clothes and shelter, apart from this, what is it we are seeking?

Q: Completeness.

K: It is suggested that we are seeking completeness. Go into it, sir, a little bit, step by step, go into it rather deeply. What is it we want? Happiness? Because most of us are discontented, dissatisfied with things as they are, both in our private life and in public life, and we want to bring about some kind of inward peace, tranquillity, a sense of order, not only in society but in ourselves. What is it one wants? And if one has this social order, which doesn't exist, if one has it, we want something more: we want god, we want enlightenment, we want a kind of mental peace and so on and so on - what is it each one of us wants, craves after, pursues? I wish we could discuss this.

Q: We don't even know what we want because we give a label to god, or enlightenment.

K: Is that it? We do not know what we want, therefore we go window shopping.

Q: I think we do know what we want. That's why we want it because we know what we want.

K: You know what you want? Then there is no problem.

Q: Not really, there isn't, is there? Probably there isn't.

K: I mean if you know what you want you can get it, only the trouble is getting it. Then there is no problem: you say, look, I want money, I want to be happy, I want some kind of order in my life, then you work for it. That's very simple. But we aren't satisfied with that, we are always wanting more and more and more. What is this `more'?

Q: If we work at it to include a physical security, and I think we have to start out with that, and also include - I don't know if I can call this psychological security but psychological serenity, if there could be that and physical security, because I think the two have to go together.

K: It is suggested that both physical as well as psychological security must be sought out.

Q: Well, it might be that there has to be physical security, we have to want that, and not just want that and in a sense I want physical security...

K: Sir, are you saying for most people in the world, the increasing population, the destruction that is going on of the earth, the air, everything, to have physical security is becoming more and more difficult. That's one point. Second, psychologically, inwardly we all want some kind of attachment, some kind of comfort, some kind of release from our own daily routine, turmoil. Now are you saying, cannot these two go together? Just enquire into it, sir. You may be well fed, have clothes and all the rest of it; the vast majority of people in the world, specially in Asia, including India, life is becoming enormously difficult, poverty, the degradation of poverty. What is preventing this? What is preventing a human being to live on this earth, having plenty of food, clothes and shelter for all human beings, what is the cause of this prevention? We are enquiring, we are not accepting, we are thinking the problem over together. Q: Is it that some amass such wealth and food and power?

K: Is it that some people amass enormous wealth and are only concerned about themselves? Is that the cause? Or is it also nationalities, economic divisions, political divisions, religious divisions, all these factors and some others prevent human beings coming together, organizing it so that we all have enough food, clothes and shelter? Obviously, because we are not concerned about others, we are only concerned as long as I have my security, leave me alone.

So that's one problem. Most of us here at least are not seeking physical security, otherwise you wouldn't be here. But we want psychological security, we want something inwardly. What is it you want?

Q: When you say psychological security is that the same as spiritual security?

K: Oh, I am not using the word `spiritual' at all, that's rather an over used word, a rather superstitious word and rather a catchy word.

Q: Psychological.

K: I am using the word `psychological' in the sense there is inner demand, I want something, not I, people want something, what is it you want.

Q: We want to realize our potential.

K: You want to realize your potentials. What are your potentials? If you say, I want to realize my potentials, first I must find out what my potentials are and then I can put all my energy into that. But what is my potential?

Q: Happiness.

K: Happiness? Is that a potential, or is that an end, is that a by-product?

Q: Maybe he feels that our potentiality is god because all the religions have told us that.

K: Is that it? Our potential is god. I am lost! We are not clearly thinking about this matter.

Q: We are all seeking eternal life.

K: We are all seeking eternal life - what do you mean by that word `eternal'? Eternal, which is beyond time. Eternal we generally understand to mean a continuous existence, eternal - is that what you want?

Q: Sir, I want to end my wanting.

K: Ah, you want to end your wanting.

Q: I want to end my confused mind.

K: You want to have a clear mind, is that it?

Q: I have a confused mind.

K: Yes, my mind is confused, the questioner says, and I want clarity. Can we discuss that? You are putting so many things in this, can we discuss that, talk it over together? Most of our minds are confused. That's obvious. If your minds were clear you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't attend any meetings, you wouldn't have to go to any guru, to any philosopher, to any recent man who says, `I know what I am talking about'.

Q: Maybe then we would just come for conversation and friendship, just to know you. You are a very nice person.

K: Maybe, is that what you want? So most of us are confused, why? Please, go into it, put your heart into this to find out. Why are we confused?

Q: Sir, the world demands action, and we don't really know how to respond.

K: The world demands action, and we do not know how to respond. How can one respond at your excellence, at your highest capacity if your mind is confused? Please stick to this. Would you say your minds are confused?

Q: Yes.

K: Right, let's start from there, please. Why is it confused?

Q: We are constantly living in contradiction.

K: We live in constant contradiction, and therefore our minds are confused. That's one reason. Go on, go into step by step, sir.

Q: One reason is that our education has taught us about different religions, and different political ideologies, and that's why there is contradiction.

K: So are you saying, our education?

Q: Our conditioning.

K: Our conditioning, various people saying various different things, one philosopher saying this, the others saying contrary to that, a scientist and so on and so on, and therefore we listen to all these people and we do not know who is speaking the truth. Is that it? Give your thoughts to this a little, please.

Q: How can a confused mind recognize this?

Q: People tell us certain things are good like money, so we get those things and find out it is no good anyway.

Q: (Inaudible)

K: First I have to have the capacity for clarity, we must first see what is the cause of this confusion. Right, sir? What is the cause of it?

Q: Is it not the content of consciousness?

K: Is not the cause of confusion the content of our consciousness. Would we go slowly into this because it is very important for you if you could understand why our minds are confused. Is it because we are unhealthy physically and therefore that psychosomatic reaction makes us confused? That may be one thing. Second we listen, or we are educated and we listen to contradictory opinions, contradictory theories, contradictory religious ideas - you can only be saved through Christ, or you can only be saved through this, that, the other. So we are being pushed in all directions constantly. The latest guru, the latest philosopher, the latest psychologist and we listen to all these people and you say, `Who is telling the actual fact, who is telling the truth?'

Q: If our minds are confused how can we recognize what is correct?

K: If our minds are confused how can we recognize what truth is in what the other's are saying. One cannot. But we are trying to find out, sir, what is the cause of this confusion, why do men and women live in this confusion. You don't give your minds to this, you just throw off things.

Q: We have been conditioned to seek things we don't really need, that's part of it.

K: Do you really want to find out why your minds are confused? Right? What price are you willing pay for it - not money, I don't want a cent from you, thank god! Please listen, sir, please listen. You have asked a very serious question.

Q: What do you mean by confused?

K: If I may ask, why are you here?

Q: Not to find out about confusion. I'd like to know what is compassion and what is love and how do we do that.

K: You see everybody has different `wantings'. You want to find out what is love, and somebody says something else, and something else.

Q: All these different things make for confusion.

K: Yes, sir. At the end of this meeting, this gathering you will be still left with your confusion. So what is important is, if we can clear up this confusion by really talking about it, going into it, really being clear.

Q: We want somebody to tell us what to do and that is why.

K: We are coming to that, madam.

Q: You asked what is the cause of confusion.

K: I am asking that, sir, you are all pushing in different directions. What is the cause of this confusion that man lives in, not only during this century it has been like that always?

Q: (Inaudible)

K: You don't even listen. Sir, it is an historical fact that man has lived this way, in confusion, and we are asking why is he confused.

Q: I don't know.

K: If you do not know, don't you want to find out?

Q: The question was, what price are we willing to pay.

K: Yes, sir, I asked what price, not financial, what price in the sense what will you give of your energy, your intention, your demand, to find out whether your mind can be clear. Will you give your attention, will you give your energy, will you give your capacity to find out, that means your blood, your heart, your mind to find out.

Q: Yes.

Q: I don't know how to give those things.

Q: We do know, we are giving our attention now.

K: Are you giving your attention to find out, not to what I am saying.

Q: To the process of questioning and trying to find out.

K: Just a minute, sir. Not to what I am saying, that is totally irrelevant. But together to find out if we can clear up this confusion. That means talking it over together, not holding on to your opinion, and my opinion, but I want to find out what is the cause of this. You understand, sir? Is it because each one is so terribly selfish, each one wanting his own expression, his own pleasure and his own - all the rest of it, he is so self-centred - is that it?

Q: (Inaudible)

K: Sir, I have just asked a question, enquire into that question. You understand in this country, here there is freedom to do what you want. In a totalitarian state you cannot do that, here you can do what you want. And we are doing what we want, each one asserting himself, each one wanting his own success, his own happiness, his own fulfilment of his own ambition and so on and so on. Is that the cause of this extraordinary chaos?

Q: That's a by-product.

K: What is a by-product?

Q: A by-product of some cause, it is not the cause.

K: Selfishness is not the cause?

Q: Maybe selfishness is a by-product of the cause, whatever that is.

K: What is further? Your egotism, your sense of wanting to fulfil your own urges? If you are a Catholic you want that, you can only find grace, salvation through a certain person; if you are not you are something else. Don't you understand my question? Each one of us wanting something for ourselves - is that the cause of it?

Q: A sense of self follows the conditioning, sir?

K: Sir, find out. If we could all put our minds to this to find out.

Q: Sir, when you give yourself attention the unattention goes away.

K: Sir, I want to find out, apart from all of you, I want to find out why human minds are confused, the basic reason, the root of this, not just the expression of this confusion but the root of it. Is it that each one of us thinks that we are extraordinary individuals, separate, and therefore each one wanting to express his own urges, his own reactions, his own demands? Which can all be expressed in one word, `self-centredness'.

Q: Yes.

K: Please, don't agree with me, it is not agreement, you have to find out.

Q: It's part of it.

K: All right, part. Now - listen to this for two minutes, sir - the parts don't make the whole. Right? Obviously. But through the part you can find the whole. Right? You understand? I want to find out for myself why my mind is confused. I say is it because I am really so self-centred? I think it is, I am so self-centred - my wife, my house, my ambitions, my god, my beliefs, my experience, I want this and I don't want that - you know self-centred action all the time. And this self-centred action is encouraged by the society I live in, encouraged by the religions - you can only save yourself through - Buddhism and parts of Hinduism deny all that. You follow? So I find by observing in the world very critically, historically, watching all the human activities, political, religious, nonsensical, communism, totalitarianism, communities and so on and so on, they are all in one way or another self-centred. That's a fact. I may be self-centred, but not knowing, but say, `I am expressing God's wishes, I represent the eternal' - it is still self-centredness. So if that is the cause, and I am pretty sure it is the cause, then what shall I do to clear up that confusion whose cause is this eternal self-centredness?

Q: You said that that is part of the cause, and then through the part we find the whole?

K: Yes, sir. Through the part you can find the whole, but the part isn't the whole.

Q: I am confused because I don't know how the parts relate to the whole.

K: Forgive me for bringing that in. It is self-centredness. So if that is the root of it what am I to do? How deeply do I want to be free of this self-centredness? How deeply am I willing to put aside those things that create self-centredness?

Q: One can see the danger of it.

K: Therefore psychologically, inwardly, unconsciously, one may see the danger of not being self-centred, which may bring about such a deep psychological revolution, unconsciously one may be frightened of it, therefore you say, please, let me remain in my confusion, let me remain in my anxiety, in my uncertainty, I'll go on window shopping for the rest of my life but I see the danger of going very deeply into this. Is that the case with most of us?

Q: We fear the responsibility of clarity.

K: Of course.

Q: To fear the responsibility of clarity is once again to focus the attention on the self. Clarity does not exist in the self, where does it exist?

K: No, I am going to point out a different way of approaching the problem. Q: Ignorance.

K: Ignorance of my own selfishness.

Q: And the lack of love.

K: Why do I talk about love when I am selfish? For god's sake, how can I talk about love of god, or whatever all that stuff is, when my whole life is self-centred.

Q: Isn't that an indication that the completeness of the brain is conditioned and the mind is...

K: Sir, sir. You are moving away from the central fact that we are self-centred. We may move to god but it is still self-centred. The extension from the centre is still self-centred. So I say to myself, is it possible-I am asking, having a dialogue - is it possible not to be self-centred, what are the implications of not being self-centred? Which, if I do it by will, I am still self-centred. If I say, I must not be self-centred, the `must not' is still part of the self. Right? I wonder if you see that. I can renounce - not I - one can renounce property, beliefs, all that, the very renunciation in order to achieve something is part of this self-centredness. Right? So one wants to find out is there a way of living, daily life, not in heaven or in some kind of community, living where we are our daily life without being self-centred. Sir, this is an enormous complex question, you understand. There must be no escape into some kind of illusion, ideologies, into some kind of fanciful living, but actual daily living in which self-centred action doesn't take place.

Q: But if I have perfect attention to the present moment I am not self-centred.

K: Give your complete attention to the present. What do you mean by the word `present'?

Q: Right now.

K: Look, please sir. Right now, what do you mean `right now'?

Q: This very second, instant, now.

K: What do you mean by those words sir - instant, now, the present?

Q: Live right now instead of splitting.

K: No, no, I'm not splitting, I am not splitting words. I am asking a very serious question, when you say `the now', which means there is neither the past nor the future.

Sir, let's go back: is there a way of living in which this self-centred activity ends?

Q: Is it possible for the self to exist without self-centred activity at all?

K: Is it possible for the self to exist without its activities. Its very activities is the self. If the self has no activity it dies. Obviously. It has no substance. Please.

Q: Sir, the fact is we don't know what it means to live without self-centred activity.

K: The root of it is the energy, this vast energy channelled in a particular direction of ambition, of greed, envy, violence, belief, all that is all this energy channelled through all this. The very centre of this is energy, and this energy is now being used along particular, narrow, limited lines and therefore it is self-centred.

Q: Could we ask where thought comes in.

K: We will come to that. Madam, thought is part of this self-centredness. I identify myself with my group, with my society, with my wife, with my god, I identify, the identifying process is part of this self-centredness. Sir, I have said this, please I have said this, see if it is the truth, or false, you jump to something else.

Q: Sir, is energy somehow trapped?

K: All right, it is trapped by your desire. Where are you at the end of it?

Q: Sir, isn't part of this that basically you don't want to be alone.

K: Yes, sir. Part of this self-centredness is being afraid to be alone, being afraid of loneliness, therefore gather together, be attached to something, be entertained, television, newspapers, the preachers, you know, entertained, football. They are all the same whether it is the entertainment of the priest or the entertainment of football, they are the same because you all want to be entertained. Please, sir, just listen to what I am saying, for god's sake. Not that you must accept. We have come to a point where we see we are self-centred, and is it possible not to be?

Q: No.

K: You say, no. Then you are blocked, you have blocked yourself from finding out if it is possible. And if a man says, yes, it is possible, then he is also blocked. The man who says, no, and the man who says, yes, are both blocking themselves.

Q: The only way that we can try to understand this process of self-centredness is to go to the suffering process and remain with it, and do nothing about it.

K: Do it, sir. Are you doing it, or is it just talk?

Q: I am doing it.

K: Good luck! Yes, sir, I am glad you are doing it.

Q: You see the process of self-centredness yet you continue.

K: We have come to the next step: which is if you see the cause of this confusion is self-centredness, if you see the self-centredness with all its innumerable activities, then what will you do? If you say, it is not possible not to be self-centred, then you give it up. Right? But if you say, also it is possible, you have also encouraged it. So both are the same. If you discard both and then say, look, I am self-centred, let me find out if one of the expressions which is attachment - attachment to my wife, to my family, to my god, to my belief, to my opinions, to my judgement - you know attachment to something, whether I can be free of that attachment, without conflict, without renunciation, without exercising will, because that is part of the self still.

Q: (Inaudible)

K: You haven't listened. Please listen to this. Which means can you observe your attachment of various kinds, not just of the wife or the husband, or the girl, attachment to a particular idea, to a particular opinion, to a particular belief, attached, and that very attachment implies you are that. You understand?

Q: No.

K: Just listen, sir. If I am attached to my furniture I am the furniture. You understand? Do you understand this simple fact? Because without the furniture I am lost. So can I observe this attachment to this or that or the other, and without conflict, without a motive, just drop it?

Q: How?

K: I am showing you, sir. The moment you ask `how' - see the reason, sir, see the logic of it - the moment I ask `how' you want a pattern, you want a system, that very system is the expression of the self. Sir, you understand, I want to understand the cause of this confusion. The cause of this confusion is this self-centredness; one of the aspects of this self-centredness is attachment; I see this very clearly, the logic of it, the rationality of it, I have exercised my reason, not my prejudice, not my callousness, I have examined it, and the very examination brings about a certain quality of intelligence. Right? That intelligence says, finished, I am not attached. It's not your will that says, I am not attached, it's the intelligence that has come into being through observation of being attached, all the implications of it: fear, jealousy, anxiety, and the loss which I call suffering, all that I see and the very perception of that is intelligence.

Q: We understand it.

K: If you like to use the word `understand'.

Q: I don't see this clearly.

K: If you don't see clearly, madam, why? Which means you are not either hearing, or not following, you are not interested, you are distracted, your attention is not fully in the enquiry.

Q: I don't want to give it all up.

K: Ah, then keep it. Then keep it and live in confusion. Nobody wants to give up anything. I am not asking you to give it up. I say on the contrary, by giving up you haven't solved the problem. You can drop your belief, but you haven't solved the problem. The problem is self-centredness, and one of the expressions of that self-centredness is attachment.

Q: Sir, we come from the past to unravel the awareness of...

K: Don't bring in other factors, madam, just look at the simple factor that one is attached, and see the implications of that attachment. Suppose one is attached to a woman or a man, they both like being attached to each other, it is part of their sexual, personal, sensational demands. And if anything happens to one or the other, one runs away or chooses after three years another man, then begins the whole problem of jealousy, antagonism, or indifference because you can always pick up another man or another girl. Right?

Q: Sir, we are so secure in psychological terms I understand but in the reality we live not only in the psychological world, we live in the natural world as well. Our daily life has another aspect other than what you call psychological.

K: No, sir, we are not, we are living in both worlds.

Q: We do, agreed. That's what I am saying.

K: We are living both in the psychological world and in the physical world. The psychological world dominates the physical world. The physical world doesn't dominate the psychological world. You can have all the money, all the food, all the cars, everything, but you may be unhappy because your husband or wife has run away, you know, all the rest of it.

Q: I am a painter, when you talk about attachment I understand this in psychological terms but in my work when I try to realize myself on a canvas, to realize myself, to put myself on a canvas, to paint a picture, a painting, I don't see that as an attachment, I try to realize my potential, I try to establish a line of communication. So if I consider that as an attachment - perhaps it is, a sort of attachment in that - but in another sense it is not attachment.

K: Isn't it an attachment? When you say I want to achieve my potential, when I want to be a great success?

Q: No, no. I make a distinction between success and potential.

K: Sir, a distinction between potential and fulfilment.

Q: Yes.

K: Just a minute, sir, careful, careful, go slowly, sir, don't say, yes. You are differentiating between potential and fulfilment. If you have potential then it will operate, you don't search out its fulfilment. If you have a first-class feeling for music, you know, and you go on working, working - the moment you say, I want to fulfil, then the self-centred activity begins. It is like a violinist, sir, who has got great potential, and he uses the instrument to fulfil himself, to become rich, to become famous, to becomes this or that.

Q: Yes, sir, maybe. But we are together this morning talking about confusion, that's how it appears in our daily living. We hear that attachment is the source of our trouble, of our misery, and if we sense that what we are doing is a matter of attachment so we get confused, should we go ahead with what we want to do, or are we serving some kind of attachment in this way?

K: Sir, I said that is only part of it. Sir, self-centredness is also getting hurt. Right? Being psychologically hurt. That's part of self-centredness. Part of self-centredness is being violent. Part of self-centredness is, I must fulfil, I have got capacity, I have a certain potentiality in me and I must express it, and when there is no fulfilment in that expression then there is frustration, disappointment, depression, anger, all that is part of self-centredness.

So I say, when you observe this confusion, and man has accepted this way of living which leads to confusion, which encourages confusion, and we live with it, we never say, can this end. All we do is, not knowing how to end it, we run away from it - we want to know about meditation, we want to know about god, if there is immorality, if there is anything but this. So we are pointing out in a dialogue, I am not your authority, though I am sitting on a platform that is merely for convenience, so that we can see each other, being raised a little bit higher doesn't give one authority. One year I was in India, a very famous guru sent his disciples, wanting to see me. And the disciples came for three days and said, `You must come and see our guru'. I said, `I am sorry, I don't go out searching any guru'. And at last the guru came because he wanted to see me. We were sitting on a little platform, on a mattress about that thick, out of politeness we got up and asked him to sit on the mattress. Immediately he became the guru because he was a little higher! And he began to tell us what to do. You understand this, the absurdity of it. So sitting on a platform, as I am, doesn't give me any authority. But I am just pointing out certain things if you are willing to listen. That our cause of our confusion is this enormous deep-rooted, unconscious as well as conscious, deliberate selfishness, self-centred activity. And can one observe it not only in relationship intimately, but also in our work? One can observe this going on all the time.

Now please just listen, if you are interested. To observe, what does it mean? To observe either as though you are outside of it and looking in-you understand this? - or the observer is that which is observed, there is no division between the observer and the observed.

Q: This is not exactly clear for me, this division.

K: What division? I'll make it clear. What time is it?

Q; Quarter to one.

K: I'll make this very clear. When you observe the mountain, as you can observe it, in what manner do you observe it? Do you see the mountain as it is, or the word `mountain', the word, interferes with the observation? Because when you look at that thing the verbal reaction comes immediately, `that's a mountain'. So when you observe the word interferes with looking at that thing. Right? Do you see that, sir? That's simple. Now in the same way, can you observe your reactions without the past telling you, this is good, bad, this is right, this is wrong, just to observe?

Q: Without thought.

K: That's right.

Q: (Inaudible)

K: Look what happens. One is greedy, you see something, a dress, a pair of trousers, shoes, whatever it is, car, woman or man, you see it. And can you observe without the past memories interfering with it? When the past interferes you are not actually looking, are you. The past memories are looking, there is no actual looking at that which is happening now. So the observer is the past, the past is looking at what is happening now, so there is a division. You understand, sir?

Q: Is it possible to have that clarity one moment and not the next?

K: If one has clarity one moment and at another moment you have not clarity, it is not clarity. Clarity is clarity. No, please, just finish this. If you once understand the principle of this, not agree with me, but I am pointing out the logic of it, the reason of it, which is: we are always looking from the past.

Q: Would you say that the man, or the being who is looking, is himself the past?

K: Yes, sir. That's right.

Q: The moment before you named it mountain wasn't that clarity?

K: I named it for you to indicate it, but to look at it without the word.

Q: No, but if I look at it myself...

K: I am going to show you something, sir: can you look at your girl, or your wife, or your husband - please listen - without the past, without the past memories, past sensations, past disagreements, all that piled up, can you look at her or him without a single image you have built about her or about him, can you?

Q: I have never tried.

K: Never tried. Quite right. Never tried it.

Q: What did he say?

K: Just a minute, sir, listen to what that gentleman said just now: he has never tried. What does that mean? He has taken the past as granted: it's my wife, my girl, my husband, with all the past implications involved in it - probably he wasn't - not you, sir, I am just saying - aware of all the past incidents accumulated which has become the image, the picture, and so the picture says, `I know my wife'. Like the pope saying, `God exists'. Q: What if your wife is doing the same thing every time you see her?

K: Right, sir, can one observe without the past accumulation? If you cannot observe without the past accumulation it is not possible to observe at all. But with all of us the past is so enormous, our minds are burdened that we cannot see without the past, see what is actually happening. Find out. If you find this out to be true for yourself, I am not telling you, then there is a totally different relationship taking place. It isn't just routine, it isn't just a mechanical repetition of the past operating all the time.

Q: Sir, when you are asked a question, an answer from memory comes up and you try...

K: Don't. Don't try. Just see how the memory jumps immediately, pops up, so watch it. Sir, this requires a great deal of enquiry and attention, it isn't just, well I'll learn this by heart and something else will happen; you have to be very attentive, watchful. But if you observe the past is always meeting the present, the present happening, modifies itself, goes on; but it is still always the past. So man has lived this way; the great scientists, philosophers, say, knowledge is the only thing that will evolve man, the ascent of man through knowledge - which is, knowledge is always the past. So we are saying, on the contrary, man can only ascend if the past with all the knowledge of the past has its right place and is free of the known, then there is freedom to move.

Q: Sir, I was serious in that comment because it may be that my wife is mechanical and therefore when you look at her you see the same thing because simply the mechanical pattern is the same. Do you understand what I mean?

K: I think I understand, sir. Sir, our minds have become mechanical, haven't they, why? You don't observe all this. Why have our minds become mechanical? Our jobs have become mechanical. Right? Right? Get up in the morning, all the rest of it, office, the routine, the routine, our way of thinking is routine, always along a particular line, horizontal or vertical, aspiring or floating along. So our minds are caught in a groove of belief and so on and so on, so everything has become mechanical, your sex, your ambitions, your aspirations, your gods, everything. You don't realize this. So there is nothing new. So we are saying something contrary to all that. That is, to observe without the observer, which is the past. Even the quail agrees!

Q: But sir, when I try to observe `what is' without the past, the past operates.

K: Then go after the past, find out why the past operates. Why the past has become so important in our lives. Sir, look, the past is important when you are driving a car. Right? Because if you are just put in a car, with a wheel, and you didn't know the technique of driving which you have learnt by constant repetition, which becomes the knowledge, you won't be able to drive. You may drive, you will kill yourself or kill somebody else. So knowledge in language, in business, in doing all the necessities of daily life - necessities - knowledge is important. But when the mind, which is the whole movement of thought, is a process of operating from past knowledge, past experience, past memory, then it becomes a dangerous instrument that divides people, that destroys people.

Q: Without meditation life has no meaning.

K: What we are doing now is part of meditation. This is meditation, to clear up one's mind. Sir, look, sir, if I am a Catholic my meditation would be confined to one particular pattern, and that isn't meditation. Meditation is something that has no limitations. I won't go into all that, you will want to escape into that. I won't because to meditate is an extraordinary activity. It can only come when the mind is completely free from confusion. A man confused meditating, his meditation is still confused, whether it is transcendental, or any other nonsense, it is still confused meditation, which only leads to illusions.

You see, sir, these various gurus have come to see me at one time or another. I am just telling you for the fun of it. The great ones and the little ones. And they all say, `What you are saying, sir, is the greatest truth, is what you are living, it's a great privilege', and they go on their own way, because they say, `Sorry, sir, we must help the poor people who don't understand'. You understand the game. Is that enough?